For the past week or so, I have noticed myself being out of alignment with the Universe (hence my lack of blog posts). This happens to be occasionally, usually just for a day or so, however, this time was a bit longer. I feel as if I’m living in a fog and just going through the motions of life. Negative thoughts tend to cloud my mind, even if I’m just doing something monotonous. This out of tune feeling usually begins when I wake up and hit the ground running, filling my day with things to do and forgetting about or putting off my daily “practice” or meditation that centers and grounds me.

I typically shake this gloomy mindset by working out, meditating until I feel better, and getting an extra dose of caffeine (not particularly recommended, although it’s typically my first go-to method). This is my magic solution, although not necessarily in that order.

Other than feeling both mentally and emotionally dull, the Universe gives me other signs that I am out of alignment.

Enter the daily hassles of life: the petty, day-to-day, pain-in-my-ass irritations that drive us insane.

I was recently chatting with a friend who felt as if he was out of alignment because he was attracting these daily hassles. He made me quickly realize that my past week has been filled with these miniscule annoyances.

The biggest one for me is running late. I used to be notorious for running late, and once I moved to New York, I readjusted and adapted to NYC travel time. I was forced to quickly learn how to manage my time much better and prepare for delays, yet I have noticed that as my thought process has changed over the past year or so now, I have been much better with being on time.

It isn’t necessarily my time management that is off now. The obstacles that get in my way along my journey (i.e. the ACE train is running with delays, my Uber driver cancelled after I was waiting for 6 minutes, traffic on 9th for literally no reason) cause me to be delayed.

Yes, these are things that are out of my control, yet they are still things that I am attracting. I’m attracting them because I am out of alignment.

I have a couple of different tests that I use to see if I am out of alignment. One of them being catching the time 11:11 AM or PM on the reg. Repeated numbers or repetition in general are signs that your are in tune with the Universe. I typically catch 11:11 once a day, and have been doing so consistently for the past 10 months. This is actually something I have been doing my whole life, I just never knew what it referred to. When I don’t catch these numbers, I know I need to do some realigning.

Today for example: this morning I caught the time at 11:12AM. I use this to gauge how out of alignment I am. If I’m one minute off, I’m close, but not yet there. Something within me is still out of alignment. Although this morning I was very close, I’m not exactly on the right path in some way or another (probably because I haven’t had the chance to meditate and center myself yet). To my surprise, I did, however, catch 11:11PM last night for the first time in probably six days, so it’s safe to say that I’m doing much better than last week.

So what is off in my life? Well, probably something that I am refusing to admit to myself. Smaller scale, I know that when I forget or put off grounding myself (the one key necessity for me to be in tune with the Universe), I immediately get thrown off and become consumed with these daily hassles. I wake up, hit the ground running, and start rushing through my life without centering myself first. Even if it’s just closing my eyes and taking a long, deep breath before I begin my day–it helps me tremendously. If my mind is scattered from the start, I’ll attract things that will interrupt my life.

When your world gets a little rocky, you know it it’s time to regroup and take a look inward. When you’re in tune with yourself and the world around you, everything will flow naturally and you will be receiving the positivity and abundance you are supposed to be attracting in your life.